Alone & Afraid

Mateo* is one of them. He is 12. He fled to the U.S. from Guatemala to the U.S. this past summer. He came with his uncle, who was raising him and his 4-year-old brother.

“We lived in a dangerous neighborhood filled with gangs and drug dealers,” Mateo said (see note, below).

Kids like Mateo hope reaching the U.S. will mean a safe place to live. They also hope it will mean steady jobs for the adults who care for them. But as soon as Mateo’s family got here, U.S. Border Patrol officials took his uncle away. Then they brought Mateo and his brother to a youth detention center. That is a place where young immigrants are held.

Mateo’s story is not unique. Since April 2018, the U.S. government has separated scores of young people from their families after they crossed into this country. They have been separated from their parents, grandparents, aunts, or uncles. Teens, children, and toddlers have been placed in detention centers. They have little or no contact with their relatives. Nearly two weeks after Mateo was taken from his uncle, they still had not been reunited. “I do not know where he is,” the boy said.

Some Americans, including President Donald Trump, say immigrants are taking advantage of the asylum process. They say too many people remain in the U.S. illegally after their asylum requests are denied. 

That’s why the Trump administration is trying to make it harder to apply for and receive asylum. It told border officials to limit how many people can apply for asylum each day at official checkpoints along the border. It also ordered thousands of asylum seekers to wait in Mexico until their court dates. 

But other Americans disagree with those changes. Many immigration experts say Central Americans often do face real danger at home. They warn that if it becomes too difficult to enter the U.S. legally to ask for protection, even more people will feel forced to cross the border illegally to apply.

President Donald Trump says immigrants are taking advantage of the asylum process. Some other Americans agree. They say too many people remain in the U.S. illegally after their asylum requests are denied.

That is why the Trump administration is trying to make it harder to apply for and receive asylum. It told border officials to limit how many people can apply for asylum each day at official checkpoints along the border. It also ordered thousands of asylum seekers to wait in Mexico until their court dates.

But other Americans disagree with those changes. Many immigration experts say Central Americans often do face real danger at home. They warn that we should not make it too difficult to enter the U.S. legally to ask for protection. If that happens, they say, even more people would feel forced to cross the border illegally to apply.

To discourage illegal crossings, the Trump administration enacted a strict immigration policy in April 2018. That policy calls for adults who cross the border illegally to be arrested and charged as criminals—even if they are seeking asylum. Initially, children and teens were to be separated from their adult relatives and sent to youth detention centers. 

Within three months, more than 2,600 kids had been taken from their families. Photos quickly began spreading of sobbing children and their parents being pulled apart at the border. Many Americans, including some who want tougher immigration laws, criticized the separations. In response, the Trump administration officially ended its policy of removing kids from adult relatives in June 2018. 

But over the following year, more than 900 additional children were removed from their families and put in detention. That’s according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). The ACLU is a group that defends individuals’ constitutional rights. 

Many of those removals happened because U.S. policy still lets border agents separate kids if they arrive with relatives other than their parents. They can also be separated if they come with a parent who previously committed a crime—even a traffic violation. 

To discourage illegal crossings, the Trump administration enacted a strict immigration policy in April 2018. That policy calls for adults who cross the border illegally to be arrested. It says they should be charged as criminals—even if they are seeking asylum. At first, children and teens were to be separated from their adult relatives. They were to be sent to youth detention centers.

Within three months, more than 2,600 kids had been taken from their families. Photos quickly spread of sobbing children and parents being pulled apart at the border. Many Americans criticized the separations, including some who want tougher immigration laws. In response, the Trump administration officially ended its policy of removing kids from adult relatives. It did so in June 2018.

But over the following year, more than 900 additional children were removed from their families and put in detention. That is according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). The ACLU is a group that defends individuals’ constitutional rights.

Many of those removals happened if kids arrived with relatives other than their parents. U.S. policy still lets border agents separate kids in such cases. They can also separate kids who come with a parent who previously committed a crime. That is true even if the crime was minor, like a traffic violation.

The places where immigrant children are being held are often crowded and uncomfortable. Mateo was sent to the center in Clint, Texas. It was built to hold 100 adults. At one point, about 700 kids were there.

“We are housed in a room with dozens of other children—some as young as 2,” Mateo said. After spending 13 days in detention, he and his brother had bathed only once. “Our clothes are the same clothes that we had on when we arrived. We have not been given soap,” he said.

Dolly Lucio Sevier is a doctor. This past June, she examined children at a center in McAllen, Texas. The center had “extreme cold temperatures, lights on 24 hours a day, [and] no adequate access to medical care, basic sanitation, water, or adequate food,” she said.

Older kids are asked to look after little kids they do not know. Ana,† 15, cared for a sick 2-year-old boy in the Clint center. Ana had fled a gang in El Salvador. “I feed [the boy], change his diaper, and play with him,” she said. “[He] never speaks. He likes for me to hold him as much as possible.”

Until recently, U.S. law said children could not be detained for more than 20 days. Yet one report showed that some kids spent more than a year in custody without their families.

Doctors say that separating kids from their families can cause anxiety, developmental delays, and behavioral problems. The American Academy of Pediatrics is the largest U.S. group of doctors for kids. It has spoken out against detaining children.

Michelle Bachelet leads the human rights office for the United Nations. She has also criticized the practice. “Even for short periods under good conditions, [separating children from loved ones] can have a serious impact on their health and development,” she said.

Officials say having to hold so many people for so long has overwhelmed the U.S. immigration system. This is happening, they say, because of the increased number of immigrants and the Trump administration’s stricter policies.

So this past summer, Congress passed a bill promising $4.6 billion to improve conditions at detention centers and boost border security. It was not easy. Like all Americans, lawmakers are divided on what to do about the people coming to the U.S. from Central America.

However, a majority of Americans agree that separating children from their relatives is “unacceptable.” That is according to a recent University of Maryland poll.

Carla Provost is chief of the U.S. Border Patrol. In July, she asked Congress to ensure that kids are housed with their relatives in centers meant for families. “We need to be able to hold families together,” she said.

Scholars and religious leaders have made similar requests. Last year, the Southern Baptist Convention, known for its conservative views, urged U.S. officials to maintain “family unity.” 

In August, the Trump administration set new rules that would let the government detain immigrant kids for an unlimited period of time. The administration says that would mean children could be held with their parents until their court dates.

But critics say the new rules will not necessarily stop separations. Plus, officials will be able to detain separated kids for far longer than what was legal before. Nineteen states are suing the administration to stop the rules from going into effect. In addition, the ACLU and other groups have filed lawsuits against the government. They want to make sure family separations truly end.

Some Americans say the U.S. needs to go further and stop detaining young asylum seekers. Legal expert Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia founded the Center for Immigrants’ Rights Clinic. She says the kids should live freely in the U.S. with their families, with monitors checking on them while they await court hearings. Wadhia thinks that approach would be far more humane. And, she says, it would be “far cheaper than keeping families in detention.”

U.S. officials should make kids a priority, no matter where they come from, agrees Lenni Benson. She started a group to give free legal aid to immigrants. “A child is a child first,” she says. “We should do everything we can to treat kids with dignity and respect.”

_{Note: Quotes by kids in this story are from legal testimonies they provided while detained at U.S. Customs and Border Protection facilities.
Source: National Center for Youth Law}